It’s been a couple of weeks, hasn’t it? There was of course a summer break in Italy, but I was also dealing with some serious no-fun things 😓 , as well as WordCamp US with team Greyd.
But… I’ve been busy collecting interesting and newsworthy stuff for you all, and I’m close to finishing this landing page.
Anyway, we’re back in the grind, and hope you enjoy this edition!
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🗞️ Within WordPress News
Here’s what I saw happening this past week:
- Justin Tadlock at developer.wordpress.org outlines WordPress 6.9’s roadmap, highlighting a revamped admin interface, AI-assisted workflows, and new block discussions, like composite blocks for granular styling, promising a more intuitive developer experience.
- Ian Misner from Kestrel shared a behind-the-scenes look at how they built a WooCommerce-powered reservation system for an HOA (how are those even a thing in the land of the free?!) By using native products, conditional logic, and dynamic availability, they delivered a lean, scalable system tailored to real-world constraints. Love seeing these kinds of “you can just build things” posts.
- I feel obligated to share every one of Ryan Welcher‘s updates to his Advanced Query Loop plugin, because it’s really what we should have as a default for our Query Loop block. Not even joking. Version 4.3.0 provides a new post exclusion tool and a completely overhauled Post Meta Queries UI, including a new option for Meta Type!
- Brendan O’Connell shared that https://remotedatablocks.com has gotten a new website, so if you haven’t checked out remote data blocks, now’s a great time.
- I don’t know when they launched it, but Twenty Bellows has released a Pattern Builder for WordPress, letting you visually create, edit, and manage block patterns without touching code. You can design patterns in the block editor, copy the generated PHP, or even save reusable patterns directly into your theme.
Very smooth workflow for theme developers and site builders.
- 🎙️ Brian Gardner and Mike McAlister join Matt Cromwell and Zack Katz on WP Product Talk to unpack where the block theme market is headed.
It’s a sharp, insight-packed conversation tailored for WordPress product folks navigating pricing, adoption, and future opportunities in the block-first era.
- The team at WebDevStudios, with Brad Williams writing, walk us through how they integrated custom indexing while preserving a seamless editorial experience using WP Search and Algolia Pro.
We can’t ever talk about better search in WordPress, now, can we?
- This one’s a gem: Advanced Custom Fields PRO 6.5, out August 11, 2025, upgrades Flexible Content with renameable layouts and one-click collapse/expand for faster editing. Date Picker now defaults to today, and ACF fixes PHP 8.2 compatibility.
- Some fun sharing here: Florian Dee at flowdee.dev shares his go-to WordPress tools he uses to run his WordPress Ecommerce Business.
- Here’s a gem: Troy Chaplin’s Block Accessibility Checks plugin empowers WordPress developers to ensure WCAG-compliant content with real-time JavaScript validation in the block editor, customizable via a robust PHP and JS API.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Equalize Digital’s Accessibility Checker.
- Ronald Huereca nails it with his DLX Plugins tutorial. He breaks down block.json as the backbone of WordPress block development, streamlining script loading and attribute management for efficient, modern plugin creation. Really great read.
- Need to reset your WordPress database without touching files or dropping tables manually? John Turner created DB Reset Pro, and it adds a safe, UI-based way to wipe your database and optionally reset users, uploads, and settings, all from the admin.
Especially handy for developers working with staging or test environments.
🤖 WordPress & AI
- WooCommerce released a custom GPT all about WooCommerce. And it’s cool. This is the future, isn’t it?
- The PHP AI client saw its first release!
- The Abilities API is moving along nicely as well. ICYMI, it’s a WordPress API for declaring and discovering plugin, theme, and core abilities in a human- and machine-readable way.
🚀 Performance & Security
- Weston Ruter announced this just landed in WordPress trunk: scripts and script modules can be registered with a `fetchpriority` arg, and the Interactivity API script modules and comment-reply script use `low` by default. This can improve LCP by ~7% when the LCP element has an image.
- WPBakery makes a compelling case for why plugin, theme, and add-on authors should participate in a vulnerability disclosure program. This really is long passed a “nice-to-have”, this is a must do in the WordPress ecosystem.
- A new plugin called Strict CSP by Weston Ruter brings Content Security Policy headers to WordPress with a stricter default posture. It enforces best practices like disallowing
unsafe-inlineandunsafe-eval, supports report-only mode for testing, and provides a UI for setting custom policies.
Ideal for developers and site owners looking to harden their site’s frontend security.
🔆 Within WordPress Highlight
I don’t think I need to add any words to what Mike said here:
💡 Interesting Finds
- Chrome 139 rolls out on-device speech recognition support via the Web Speech API — giving sites more privacy-friendly options for transcribing audio locally. You can now also shape corners in CSS (think squircles and notches), and define powerful custom CSS functions with @function, allowing dynamic styling logic without JavaScript. Chrome’s official post outlines all the details.
- Who has the fastest SITE in the Tour de France?
- The real blocker in software development isn’t writing code, argues Pedro Duarte, but the organizational drag of indecision, alignment theater, and fear-driven delay, a dynamic he breaks down candidly at orde.dev, where he pushes for momentum over manufactured certainty.
🛒 WooCommerce News
- Over the summer, WooCommerce 10.1 was released, and improved to how sessions and cron jobs are managed. These changes are intended to improve both performance and reliability party🎉.
- Review your integrations for compatibility! Oh, and speaking of WooCommerce, they are building a CLI migrator tool as well. Neat-o.
🎁 Bonus
Reviewing hosting can be done in a variety of ways, but, for me, it’s never about how good their support is. I can work around that. I’m looking for raw performance. Preferably the unlimited kind. And when that’s what you’re looking for, this podcast with Kevin Ohashi from Review Signal is for you. The only WordPress hosting review that looks at hard data.
I’ve collected more over the summer recess, but this is it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!
Ciao for now, Remkus
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